It’s that time of year again.  October 7 is the First Monday in October meaning that the Justices of the United States Supreme Court will be back in D.C. for another term of arguments.  This term is a little bit unusual for recent terms in that — when the Supreme Court had left for the summer — they had already granted review in enough cases to fill the first four (October, November, December, and January) argument sessions.  Recently, the Supreme Court has had trouble granting enough cases to fill the first three argument sessions and have had (at most) one or two cases left over for January when they meet at the end of September to begin adding cases.

(For a little explanation of what I mean about argument sessions and filling them.   From October through April, the Supreme Court has seven argument sessions.  Each session consists of arguments on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday — excluding any federal or religious holidays.  A “normal” argument day consists of two arguments on two cases.  Ech argument is one hour split evenly between the two-sides although time is often allocated to the Solicitor General to express the government’s position.  Typically, there is a two-week gap between each argument session except for longer breaks after the December and maybe January session.  A Supreme Court case has two rounds of written arguments.  The first round is an application to the Supreme Court to take a case — officially called a petition for writ of certiorari.  These pleadings have relatively short page limits and are designed mostly to explain why the case is important enough for the court to take.  While there are time limits on these pleadings, the Supreme Court is relatively liberal about granting extensions.  If the Supreme Court decides to grant review, there is a second round of written arguments on the merits of the case followed by the oral argument.    The time limits to complete the second round of written arguments is approximately 105 days or 10 days before oral argument whichever is earliest — and extensions are almost unheard of.  Thus, oral argument has to be at least three months after the case is accepted for full briefing and argument — and four is better.  So, any case heard in the first three months has to be accepted before the Supreme Court recesses at the end of June,  And once the Supreme Court returns, any January cases have to be accepted by the end of the October session, etc. until all of the cases for this year’s term have to be accepted by the end of the January session.  Any case accepted after January is for the next year’s term barring an unusual case in which the Supreme Court orders accelerated briefing like what happened last term on the Census case.)

At this point in time, the Supreme Court has issued its argument calendars for the October, November, and December argument sessions.  While it has not yet released the calendar for the January session, it is likely that most of the remaining accepted cases will be heard in January (although some add-ons from cases accepted in October is possible).  Each of the first three parts of this series will focus on one argument session with the fourth part focusing on the cases left over for likely January argument and possible cases that might be granted for the rest of the term.  Any attempt to guess what is likely to be granted is highly speculative.  The Supreme Court accepts about 1% of the cases for actual full review.  Even weeding out the significant amount of long shot petitions, the strongest cases have — at most — a 1 in 10 shot at being granted review. Continue Reading...